Momgineering: The Dog

I grew up in the country on my grandparents' farm. My mom and her brothers grew up there, and I got to trek the same creek bottom that they did when they were my age. I loved it - still do. It was a working ranch with Charolais cattle and a farm when they were growing up. My grandparents had pretty much retired when we moved back to the old hometown and had settled in to small ranching with goats, some cattle, a mule, a horse, and the wildlife. The only thing my grandfather planted was oats and wheat in the fall and hay grazer in the spring. I did my fair share of stacking hay bales from all of that hay grazer. They always had at least one dog. My favorites were the blue heelers. I loved how smart they were. I had one that I got to call my own. His name was Bear. A big blue heeler with a square head and lots of smarts.

So, years later down the road after I had graduated from college and gotten my first job out in West Texas, I bought a few acres with a house on it. Then I re-fenced everything and moved some goats onto my little homestead to keep the tumbleweeds down and the fence line clean. Of course, I also had to get a dog. I wanted a blue heeler...I had the space for one. Well, one morning the local news advertised puppies down at the local animal shelter. They just screamed blue heeler with all of the blue mottle in their coats and were about 6 - 8 weeks old. I went down to the shelter to look. I'm such a sucker. Who goes down to the animal shelter just to look? I came home with one. She had blue eyes and some of the prettiest blue on her, and she came to me when I called her. I talked with the local vet and we figured she also had some Cattahoula in her that gave her those blue eyes. I named her Lil because she was just a little (li'l) thing.

A few months went by and I noticed that as she was growing her coat was changing. It was time for her shots, so I loaded her up and took her back to the vet. I walked in. The vet looked at the dog and asked what I had. "A blue heeler and cattahoula cross, I think." She snorted. "...and schnauzer!" Schnauzer??!! No no no no no...no dog of mine was going to have schnauzer in her. No offense to any schnauzer lovers out there, but I wanted a cow dog...a working dog. Well, I got what I got.

Lil is the sweetest dog you'll ever come across. She's also stubborn, hyper, and afraid of her own shadow. We also think she has a hard time seeing because of her light eyes. And because she's stubborn, she has a hard time listening to what you want her to do. When she calms down, she can be trained...that happens like once every few months. And the fact that I'm no longer in the country and we're living in the Metroplex with a small backyard doesn't help her burn off that excess energy. There are no goats for her to chase.

So, here's my mutt in all of her hairy glory.